


A Bang, A Fizzle, And Nothing At all.

by MaskedCyborg



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Again, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Gene is mentioned but, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, RIP, not the real dudes, sorry - Freeform, this is hella fuckin sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-11-10
Packaged: 2019-08-21 13:24:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16577330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaskedCyborg/pseuds/MaskedCyborg
Summary: The universe doesn’t go out with a whimper, and the idea that it does is bullshit.Which, okay – that’s pretty rough language. Who am I to know? Maybe it was a whimper or maybe it was nothing all at once; something soft, and silent, and endless, and suddenly nothing at all.





	A Bang, A Fizzle, And Nothing At all.

**Author's Note:**

> This was horribly, horribly unplanned and due to only 3 AM writing - so. I'm super fuckin sorry for hurting you like this
> 
> Besides the reasoning, it was a real joy to contemplate and write. I pretty much wrote it to I Want! I Want! by Walk The Moon. There's that cool Album but then theres the actual song I Want! I Want! and thats the one it was done did to. I'll link it at the end.

The universe doesn’t go out with a whimper, and the idea that it does is bullshit.

 

Which, okay – that’s pretty rough language. Who am I to know? Maybe it was a whimper or maybe it was nothing all at once; something soft, and silent, and endless, and suddenly nothing at all. Maybe the universe doesn’t go out with a bang – but with a _gasp_ and a _sigh_ and it’s gone.

 

The universe is Julian.

 

Julian doesn’t start with a _bang,_ and he probably never did. He is someone unexpectedly expected, because we knew it was going to be someone, but no one could have guessed it was going to be him. Julian arrives with a smile, loud and innocent. He is designed to fit everything around him, the blown-off trees and dark shaded greens of paratrooper gear; the brown feathered hair and the chocolate eyes. Bloody white snow and pale freckled skin. Julian does not enter my life with a _bang,_ and he doesn’t leave it that way either.

 

You don’t realize you revolve around someone until you do, suddenly, unexpectedly. It’s like when astronomy was first introduced to people, and everyone thought the sun revolved around us. Julian depends on me because he’s new, and he needs someone to share a foxhole with. And so, he’ll trot up, and he’ll shake my hand gleefully, no bangs or pops or whimpers, and I’ll grimace and shake my head. The idea _I_ depend on _him_ is ridiculous.

 

Sometime later, weeks into days and nights, I wake with the taste of copper on my tongue and the shaking, violent memory of a man’s body being torn apart by the seams. And when I wake, everything will be dark, and everything will be empty. It’s like buying a telescope and staring at the darkness inbetween the stars, not being able to zoom in. It’s a void of possibilities. It’s a lot like that. And then, with no oral sounding _pops_ and _bangs_ and _fizzles_ , only the physical sound of the cold, dead earth of mother-fuckin-Belgium, there’s a sound. It is quiet, and muted, and completely made up; like hearing the ticking of a clock when there isn’t one. I hear the universe being created -and it’s when looking at Julian, fast asleep and rested tiredly on my shoulder, strange and beautiful.

 

The beginning of the universe sounds a lot like fire crackers.

 

Like the Fourth Of July when I was a kid, and we could only afford those real shitty fireworks that fizzled on the ground. That’s a lot like the universe starting up, the revving of a car being started. My neighbor always stole the big, booming ones that lit up the sky – fire crackers. Vaguely, now, the closest sound I can think of is the sound of mortar shells being dropped to the ground. I desperately wipe the sound away from my memory again, until it has to bubble and rise into reality. I slide a little closer to Julian, let the knowledge that _he’s_ the one I really revolve around wash over. Like a hidden fact I already knew and didn’t need to say anything of.

 

And when, another night, when we’ve lost a man to the snow and the blood and the sorrowful, guilty hands of Eugene Roe (who the world never seems to give a chance, anymore) Julian is the one who slides a little closer, this time. And he slides, and he falls, and he’s awkwardly bent to rest his head on my lap, and I don’t move. The world is cold and bitter, and all I seemed to have was the guys and him.

 

And there is no sound. We’re both just cold, and tired. And Julian is a child, in the strange, beautiful way a universe is when it’s trying to create galaxies and stars without burning them out, without creating a hole that gapes and steals it all away. So, I’ll sigh, and I’ll rest my hand in his hair, and he’ll exist, and I’ll exist, and it all will keep moving on.

 

Julian kisses like he doesn’t have any time left. It’s sloppy, but soft – like his lips, like his skin, unlike his hands – like he’s trying to bleed the stolen life back into you. It’s exhilarating and dangerous, and it’s something that takes a while to fade away from myself, until he’s leaning in again for more. And it’s something horrible, that shouldn’t happen, the two of us. Like dust plaguing more than half of the country as I grow up, like the city air hurting my lungs more than smoke. Like a world war. Like cold, cold fucking Belgium and stubborn Germans and mortar shells and fire crackers bursting in my heart because everything about Julian is horribly, desperately sweet.

 

And the universe moves on, and planets revolve around stars and galaxies form and there are no _bangs_ and there are no sounds. Me and Julian are assigned a patrol and Julian asks to lead first, because he is a kid, and he doesn’t know the feeling of dying without getting hurt, and we let him. There are no warning _pop_ s, or stop signs, or air raid sirens blaring through empty streets. And we let him. And the night before it all and the news of the patrol, I kiss him. And I don’t tell nobody that the universe never went out with a whimper, and that the universe never began with a bang.

 

I’ll remind you this; Julian is the universe. At least, he’s my universe. And I won’t let any damn fool say the moment he left me was when that bullet was fired, when there was that first, physical sound – and it happened to be a _bang._

 

The moment Julian left me was not when I stopped and saw a different shaped helmet peek over wood piles, clouded in fog and snow. It was not when that German loaded his goddamn gun and shot the bullet, the pull of the trigger and the release of something so small it could kill you – and the _bang_ – it was not when the universe stopped in its tracks, and fell, and bled. Voiceless and quiet, the beginning of the end. The moment Julian left me was when I left him.

 

Because he was _right there_. He was so close I could grasp his fingertips, but the _pop_ s and _fizzle_ s and sparks of everything dying were too much, and he was bleeding out, vocal chords visible. And I’d never hear his laugh again and he’d never kiss the same. (Rough, sloppy, _running out of time_.) But war goes marching on long after it’s destroyed everything, before it too has to die.

 

And so, I left him.

 

Like an asteroid going nowhere. Zipping away like it can escape the universe’s desperate reach. And when I shouted the last _I’ll come back for you_ s, stopping and looking back as much as I could, quickly trying to keep up behind the rest of the guys, all he could mouth back was _I love you._ And I left him. And that is when he left me.

 

Julian died alone, and cold, and abandoned, miles and miles and entire fucking ocean away from his home in the cold snow of Bastogne. He bled out from his throat, the same throat that produced all the good, beautiful sounds he had given everyone and had given me, and I wasn’t there. **_I_** was the one who left him there. And he probably went out with a choked, gargled bloody _gasp_ , and a _sigh_ , and then nothing at all. And his heart and his brain would finally shut down, and his organs would fail, and he would end with nothing to show. So maybe the universe doesn’t go out with a _whimper_ , because Julian is better than that. Because he deserves better than that.

 

Maybe the universe goes out alone, cold, with a _gasp_ and a _sigh._ And all there’s left to mourn for is the remains of what’s left, and the tears of guilt left behind.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1j_59XecGQI&list=RD1j_59XecGQI&start_radio=1&t=136


End file.
